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Beautiful. That exchange reminds me of the Mke Tyson versus Michael Spinks match (KO in the first), or even the Tyson versus Robin Givens bout.

In addition to Hanushek, Jay could have used the Brookings study by Chubb and Moe, __Politics, Markets, and America’s Schools__ (1991) as an example of how to do it right. They ranked schools by a weighted average of student gains on standardized tests, then compared the top 1/4 of schools in the sample to the bottom 1/4.

“Who elected Mark Tucker?” The Gates Foundation, apparently. I’d like to know “why?” and “how did he get the imprimatur of the Harvard University Press?”.

It’s not hard for this kind of thing to get the impimatur of top academic presses. As Jay and the textbook he quoted both said, the field is just drenched in this nonsense. Good analysis is the exception, not the rule.

Another fact to note: I understand from industry sources that something like 80% of academic books are published with the help of some kind of subsidy. That’s not including generic subsidies to academic publishers; it means subsidies based on what kind of book’s being published. If you know what I mean.

“If you know what I mean.”
I shudder to think. Do interested parties direct subsidies to academic presses? There are hidden depths here, I expect, like the role of ostensibly independent accreditation agencies in maintaining the current structure.